Failing Hard drive...

When I restarted my computer this morning. A screen came up telling me that my Harddrive might be about to fail and that I should back up all of my files.

I downloaded HDDlife and ran it and it told me the same thing (log attached)

So I wnet out and bopught a new hard drive and want to install it. I believe waht I wan to do is "image" the new ddrive so that I can keep all of the files and the OS running as they were.

Can anyone help out?

Thanks

 

Norton Ghost is a good place to start if you want to swap drives using an image. I've used Ghost in the past to create bootable recovery CD/DVD's which worked perfectly.

My advice is, if you have time and want to make life easy in the future is. Backup all your files, music and everything else to DVD or another HDD if you can before your drive fails. If the drive is making weird sounds and stalling now and then, clicking then it's near the end of the road.

You could.. do a clean install of Windows (I assume Windows) on your new drive, install all your updated drivers and SP's then use Ghost to make an image of your fresh and clean install. In the future if you want to reinstall the OS you can use Ghost to do it in 15 - 40 minutes! You'll never have to run through all the updates from the start again! Copy your saved files from your DVD's or HDD to the correct places and all is back to normal.

I suggest the above for a number of reasons, one of which is not putting your old drive under alot of pressure and maybe killing it off before you get all your files. What ever you do, backup everything important right away!

There are many good guides to google when it comes to using Ghost and progs like it to copy your system from drive to drive.

good luck

 

You can use a Free Utility from the New HDD manufacture to make an exact bootable image of you old dying HDD ( if you old HDD isnt too far gone)

If you bought a retail HDD you should have the Utility on CD, if you bought OEM you can download the free utility at the HDD manufactures Web